


what do you know

by indefensibleselfindulgence



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Other, Pre-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-26 03:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20037253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indefensibleselfindulgence/pseuds/indefensibleselfindulgence
Summary: He really thought they'd snap back to normal on Monday.





	what do you know

**Author's Note:**

> gender neutral byleth 
> 
> i like claude can you tell

It's understandable, he supposes.

Watching his usually flat-faced professor be on the verge of tears for an entire week straight makes sense. Claude was on the other side of the field when Jeralt was struck down and coming across that, stoic professor over their father's body weeping harder then the rain wasn't exactly easy on him. Or on the rest of his class.

But for some reason, he really thought they'd snap back to normal on Monday.

Callous of him, maybe. He's sure if he told them they wouldn't care all that much. Maybe he's just immature when it comes to this sort of thing. He really shouldn't be, of course, he presumably makes widows and orphans every other week when they're tasked with clearing about a bandit camp or pushed in the direction of dangerous heretics, but still. This is Teach- Teach who smiled, maybe twenty-seven times, since they've met.

It's not like they really did emotions.

"We should do something." Hilda leans forward as conspiratorially as she physically could.

They sit at a dinner table together- well- everyone other then Leonie who's maybe taking it even worse then Teach was. The other students avoid them for the most part, though he sees them give his professor their condolences as they sprint down the halls like always.

"Do what?" Lorenz leans back in his seat, stolen wine almost sloshing out of his cup and onto his uniform. "How do we even begin to replace-"

"No one said anything about replacing." Claude reaches past Ignatz to push him upward. If they draw too much attention, no amount of lying will get them out of trouble for stealing communion wine.

"Yeah, just cheering them up a little." Lysithea makes a face. "Pay attention."

"We can cheer them up more than a little." Hilda frowns. "I mean, if we want to be realistic." She drags the word out until everyone, everyone but Claude, stares at her. "We'd all be dead without them."

"That is..." Marianne, who to her credit did hold out the longest, lifts the cup to her lips and drinks. "...Probably true- isn't it?"

"Mmhm." Raphael nods- "For sure."

"Well maybe you would have-" Lorenz' mumbling goes ignored.

What do they even like, he wonders. Fishing? Can they do something with fishing? Cooking maybe? They invited him to cook with them a few times. Gardening? Singing? He doesn't know anything about them, a fact that usually irritates him but now it's little other than guilt.

Should he feel guilty for not knowing his professor's hobbies?

He sighs, and the others turn to look at him.

Well, he is the leader, after all.

"Just- Just be good. Try harder than usual. They like when we're good at class."

Because they're a teacher.

And maybe sixteen of those twenty-seven times were in the classroom.

"Just study? That's the plan?" Hilda gives him an incredulous look, which, fair. His reputation does always precede him. "Really?"

"It's not a bad plan." Ignatz mumbles. "We shouldn't add more stress to their lives. While they mourn."

"I'll tell Leonie," Lysithea says, and stands up slowly, teetering only a little from the drink. "Does anyone know where she is?"

"Stables. I'll go with you, if that's alright?" After a nod, Marianne follows after her. One by one they all trail away from the table, hiding they're drunkenness as best they can. He's left staring at Hilda, who's left staring at him.

"Really, though. What are you planning?"

"I don't always have a plan."

"Claude."

He doesn't always have a plan. When he really needs one, they seem more elusive than Grand Relics.

"Just don't whine about not wanting to work too loudly, okay? Give them a break." She pouts, which is expected but agrees anyway, eventually, after emptying her cup.

"You too, then." She says. "With your weird cagey questions."

He really thought he was more subtle.

Goes to show what little he knows.

…

Things settle into some semblance of normality.

They just have more guest lecturers then usual.

Teach invites him out to tea, and he always tries to make time. He spends longer then he needs to, really, in the gazebo with them because for once the sad wet eyes shift back to neutral and he thinks he can push the trauma back at least for a while.

That's the best any of them can do, offer distractions, and behave. The day of the tournament sneaks up on him, mostly because it was never something he really paid attention to. He knew that sometimes Teach would enter them into it, Raphael and Lysithea had the most victories among them, and any prize money would be spent on them, which seems fair.

He's never done one before, which is why it's a bit of a shock when his professor sprints past the dining hall before turning on a coin when they spot him out of the corner of their eye.

"Sure." He says, even though he has books he has to get through and letters he has to write.

Because it's Teach.

They give him a new bow, silver arrows, tight string. He grips it tight as they walk to the training pit together.

"So I just shoot arrows at people?" They nod, say something about it being just like a normal battlefield, but, you know, people you see on a regular basis. "Sure."

Why they're not shooting at targets, he doesn't understand, but he gets into the training pit and knocks his arrow. Just don't get hit. He's usually great at that sort of thing. He goes three rounds before taking any real damage, and it's worth it just to see Teach clap for every round of success he sees. He gets an arrow through his shoulder in round four and Teach rushes over to pull it out and push a potion into his hands.

"I'm fine. Relax." He gives them his smile and tries not to show any pain. At least not on his face. "The magic will do most of the work anyway."

Felix puts up way more of a fight then he thought he would, considering Claude's never seen him with a bow before, and there is something that is probably very worrying about hearing cheers when he looses an arrow through Felix's calf but just like everything else he puts it in the back of his mind because Teach comes over and picks him up, spins him in the air and praises him.

"Didn't know you could lift me." He laughs when his feet touch the ground again. "You look way too scrawny." They deck him in the shoulder, and he laughs again.

They look barely human at all most of the time, but they're smiling now, (twenty-eight), and Claude sighs.

Fate is really weird like that.

…

He sits in his room, Jeralt's diary open in front of him.

Weirdly enough, there isn't a section on the god that apparently lived in Teach's head, who would have thought.

Just as Teach finally cheered up, or just got so angry that they forgot about their dead father, their... goddess, that's still so weird to admit or think about, died for them too. Or not died, but disappeared in a way that made his professor sad. Again.

He really doesn't know why he cares so much, because Teach preforms the same, fights the same, instructs the same, sad or not sad. They're always lethal, always driven, always brilliant. He closes the book slowly and rubs his eyes. It's already pitch black outside.

Sneaking down to get food is probably not actually worth it, but he does it anyway.

He almost gets caught by knights twice, but he makes it into the kitchens in one piece.

"Of course, you're here." Teach stares up at him like a- He laughs quietly and slips back to the stoves. "Like a deer." He says and looks at the stew they're making. "I thought you looked like a deer. You're staring."

They apologize and stare down at their cooking food. Their weird hair seems to hang even lower than usual. Are they growing it out?

"Why didn't you eat earlier?" He almost jumps. Their voice comes from nowhere, like a ghost of the Cathedral.

"Got distracted." He finds a clean spoon and gets a mouthful of steaming liquid before they can swat at him. "Jeralt's diary is just really interesting. When it's not about how well you kill bandits."

"Not exciting enough anymore?" Their hair hangs in front of their face now.

"I can only watch you murder bandits so many times before it starts to lose its appeal. What can I say? You're pretty one-note Teach."

Which is maybe the biggest lie he's ever told.

They stay in silence after that, Teach occasionally stirring their pot and Claude leaning on the counter and thinking about how wild his professor is.

"Hey, Teach? What's your name?"

"Byleth."

"Huh." He says. "Did your father name you that?" They shrug. Well, they did tell him that they didn't know their mother. Despite reading pages and pages of love letters and forlorn sighing, he didn't know their mother's name or Teach's name either.

At some point, the stew is done.

The old church creaks as they eat in the same silence. Teach's eyes almost seem to glow in the dim light.

God touched.

He remembers a conversation they had months ago about Gods and feels his face heat up a little.

"You're really unreadable, you know that?"

They just shrug again, and finish their soup.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are always encouraged and very very very appreciated
> 
> find me on[ tumblr ](http://iamalivenow.tumblr.com/) and [ twitter](https://twitter.com/licotain)


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